Magna Mater -Ritual and Religious Aspect

The Cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother, is probably the oldest religion of all. The earliest stone-age sculptures depict the mother- goddess, as an idol found in Catal Hüyük, six thousands years old. In a later form she became a seated woman flanked by two leopards. The area of the Aegean Sea and especially the Cretan Isle, organized by a matriarchal order during the prehistoric age, adored a Mother Goddess as dispenser of fecundity. She was adored as Cybele, worshipped with this name in Greece, Phrygia and Anatolia. On the banks of the Euphrates as Koubaba and near the Babylonians
as Damkina, which means "married with the earth and the sky". Other names were Gaia, Ga or Ge (from greek Mother Earth), Terra (in Latin) and Gatumdu (her Sumerian name); she was also called Ishtar in Akkadia and finally Isis in Egypt, not saying that behind her name there was also the oriental
goddess Shub-Niggurath.

In nearly all creation myths of all cultures she appears to be the eternal, not born, just existing from the beginning of time. She gives the earth its shape. She is the bearer of the world and the population of this planet (plants, animals and humans). The Romans identified this goddess with the Greek Rhea, and called her the Magna Mater, the Great Mother. Although the priests of the cult were men who had castrated themselves in front of her image, but most of the followers were women. They worshipped the goddess in different temples, independent each other, although some temples had more influence than others did. They were mainly in Phrygia, Greece and Italy. In Pessinus, in northern Asia, a simulacrum of the divinity was worshipped: one black stone of conical shape, probably a meteorite. Another major temple was in Delphi, which was later re-consecrated to Apollo and became much more famous for his oracle. In each temple the High Priestess had the greatest status, followed by the Archigalli. Below in status was the ordinary priestesses and lowest the galli.


The Roman Magna Mater

The Second Punic War had put in crisis the republican Rome and its religious structure too. In the attempt of recovering the support of the Gods, which appeared to be lost, the cult of the Magna Mater was introduced in 204 BC, after the consultation of the Sibylline Books. It?s also believed that the patricians imported the cult of Magna Mater explicitly so that their social class would have a goddess that served some of the functions that Ceres did for the plebeians. As a result, there was sharp antagonism between the two cults, becoming rivals separated only by the social classes they served. The same year the temple of Magna Mater was dedicated, a new festival dedicated to Ceres was established. This festival was called the Ieinium Cereris, and may have represented a plebeian
response to the new patrician goddess. The embassy was sent to the king of Pergamus, in which territory the sanctuary was located. Having obtained the delivery of the simulacrum, it was then carried and loaded on a ship to Rome. The simulacrum was one pointed black stone of conical shape, called acus, which represented the goddess. On its arrival it was welcomed into the city by a vir optimus, or best man, selected from one of the most distinguished patrician families. The matrons that escorted the goddess on the road from Ostia to Rome were entirely drawn from the patrician class. Since its arrival in Rome until the completation of an appropriated temple, the black stone was kept in the temple of Victory (the Aedes Victoriae), on the western side of the Palatine hill. (Livy Ab urbe condita XXIX.37.2; XXXVI.36)

Between 204 and 191 BC the sanctuary was built in the same area in order to receive the acus. Probably that place was chosen also because of the proximity to the cave of the recovery of the twins, the Lupercale, as mountains and caves were sacred to the Magna Mater, and her temples were often built near them in the tradition. It was dedicated on April 11 191 BC, by the praetor Marcus Iunius Brutus, on which occasion the ludi Megalenses, or Megalesia, were instituted and celebrated in front of the temple (Livy loc. cit.; Fast. Praen. ap. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I". p. 235, 314-315,
cf. p. 251=VI. 32498; Fast. Ant. ap. NS 1921, 91; Cicero de har. resp. 24; cf. for site Ovidius Fast. II. 55; Martial VII.73.3).

In 111 BC there was a first fire in the Temple of the Magna Mater when the statue of Quinta Cloelia within the temple was uninjured. It was caused by the aedile Quintus Memmius, who took with him the black stone.

The temple was restored by Metellus Numidicus, consul in 110 BC, and the cult resumed in an official and pacific version.

Burned again in 3 BC, it was destroyed by mysterious circumstances.

Augustus restored it in 3 AD. He also showed his closeness to the Religio of Cybele (the other name commonly used in Rome) and his wife Livia was resembled to the goddess. This worship has a large growing since the end of the Imperial era (or since the interdiction of the paganism). After that the traces of the cult of the black stone were lost. (Val. Max. I.8.II; Obseq. 99; Ovidius Fast.IV. 347-348; Mon. Anc.IV.8)

According to writings about Roman Regiones, the temple was still standing unharmed in the fourth century (Not.Reg.X).

During Roman History there are other references by classic authors:
- The temple is found in Cassius Dio (XLVIII.43.4), Juvenal (IX.23) as a place of assignation, and in the third century (Hist. Aug. Claud. 4; Aurel I).
- The stone needle itself is described by a late writer (Arnob. adv. gentes vii. 49) as small and set in a silver statue of the goddess (cf. Herodianus ab exc. d. Marci i. II; Arnob. v. 5). It was perhaps removed by Elagabalus to his temple (q.v.) on the Palatine (Hist. Aug. Elag. 3; cf. LR 134-138; but cf. BC 1883, 211; HJ 53-54, n. 44).